Happy Pongal !!!Jan 14, 2006... Today is the Pongal Festival. Woke up early around 10:00 am. My mom forced me to finish taking bath as early as possible to assemble for prayer for the Pongal. So got ready for the prayer and had the sweet pongal cooked in new vessel (not pot) served in plantain leaf. Told my mom to cook in POT to have the feeling :) lets see next year..
I didn't have any excitement for the occasion of Pongal and the feeling is same for any festivals or occasions happening for the past few years. All I/we do is greeting our friends through email or SMS or any community postings like orkut or through mobile and the wishes are especially to opposite sex whom you might not have acquainted much with. Time has changed. Gone are the days when I went to the shop and purchased greeting cards for wishing my school friends(only boys) and used to go to post office and post it. All these are done without any expectations, that is real friendship. Now that I don't even know what some of my school friends to whom I posted greetings, are doing now. Shame on me.
Yesterday was Bogi. I did nothing for the occasion. Just looking back at my childhood days, Bogi was one of the festivals which I enjoyed celebrating with full enthusiasm and excitement. I had a lots of friends around my home with the same age group living in a common compound consisting of 10 small houses. We burn a lot of garbage to make a big flame out of it and to beat others burning fire in the same street. It was like a big competition on who makes a huge flame and we have always won the race :) Around the flame, we make lots of noise and beat the tiny drum, we call it as "Molam" a small percussion instrument. We buy that small molam at the beginning of that week, search a thick stick to beat that, cover the stick with Tar(which are kept in the roads in huge drums for laying road). We make the stick a round headed one using Tar. The molam will be torn out in few days and some of us will burn it in bogi itself. However, I used to keep my molam for long days and years. I still remember keeping a molam for more than three years for the simple reason that it is expensive for buying it every year for my family. We used to wake up as early as around 3'O clock in the morning and wake all our friends up in that compound, collect materials to burn. That includes news papers, previous year calendars, cycle tyres, mats, etc. We were not aware of the toxic gases produced by tyres and tubes, but we prefer that for its ability to burn for a long time. We used to shout like anything with full of excitement and happiness. I still have a burnt mark in my left foot due to a fire drop from a tyre. hmm going too much nostalgic.
Continuing scripting my olden golden days.. For the Diwali and pongal festivals, my parents will take us for shopping dresses for us. I remember most of the times, my parents wont take dress for themselves or at least my father wont take for himself due to budget problems. (Thavamai thavamirundhu... reflects some of my past days :) ) Without realizing that I used to cry for asking so many things to buy. Once bought, we used to show the dress to everyone in our line(we used to call the set of houses inside the compound as 'line') before stitching. Sometimes the tailors wont give the stitched dress on time. For that we will knock his door at early morning on the festival day to get our stitched dress.
Hmm, I can write a full book of autobiography covering my childhood days :) Any festival, whether we had money or not, we were so happy enjoying the festive season. Now that we have enough money to celebrate it. But don't have the enthusiasm to celebrate. Not getting excited about any festival. We are not as happy as we were in those days. Computers and the modern world can bring money but not the real happiness. Let the almighty bring all the happiness to every human being and every living things in the universe.
